Wed. Feb 06, 2008
The Day After In Georgia
I stayed up too late last night waiting for West Coast election returns, but even today, it’s clear you could have stayed up all night and not gotten any additional real resolution. Though nearly half the country voted yesterday, the Democrats are a virtual tie, and McCain was unable to fully grab a dominating lead, though he did end up positioned a lot better than the other Republicans.
But first, let’s tawk Jawja. The Atlanta paper says:
In the Democratic primary, it was Obama’s second straight Southern triumph, and like an earlier victory in South Carolina, was built on a wave of black and young voters.
About 77 percent of voters ages 18-29, about 74 percent ages 30-44 voted for Obama, according to exit polls.
The only age group going for Hillary Clinton was voters 60 and older, according to the exit polls.
Obama received more than 60 percent of the vote from both men and women.
Obama wins big, Huckabee appears headed to close victory
To explain the numbers above as well as the 66.3% to 31.2% final spread, we get this from the Clinton campaign:
Hillary Clinton campaign spin outta GA, per spokesman Phil Singer, subject “Surrogate Points”
“Unlike the Obama campaign, the Clinton campaign never dedicated significant resources to Georgia. Sen. Obama spent over $500,000 dollars on ads on television and radio; we never went up on TV. The Obama campaign has 9 offices in Georgia. The Clinton campaign only has 2. Sen. Obama has had staff and significant campaign operation across the state for 8 months. Sen. Clinton only deployed staff to the state in the last couple of weeks. Polls have consistently showed Sen. Obama with wide lead over Sen Clinton. That lead has only widened over time.”
Hotline On Call: We Didn’t Want You Anyway, GA
Nice. I’d be most curious to hear what my friend Miss Melanie at Blog For Democracy has to say about that, given the time she spent supporting Clinton in Georgia. Regardless, it’s becoming instructive that when the Clintons get thumped, we hear [1] the state was in some way not a representative sample of Real America (e.g., “You know, Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice.”), or [2] they weren’t really trying to win, which implies they could have. If they’d really wanted to.
But before I let off national steam, let’s stick to the numbers in Georgia, as the trend over the past eight years is quite interesting.
We can’t do a head to head comparison, because in 2000 there was a wide open Republican primary plus Desultory Democratic voting for Gore, and in 2004 there was a wide open Democratic primary plus some Required Republican voting for Bush. This year, both primaries are wide open, and it affected the turnout. But the numbers seem to say more than that.
In 2000, you had about 284,400 Democrats vote for Gore in the primary, while the Republican battle brought in about 644,000.
Conversely, in 2004 you had a mere 161,374 votes for Bush in the primary, versus 626,813 voting in the more contentious Democratic primary.
In each case, we got a range of about 625,000 to 650,000 voting in the “active” primary. What were the numbers this year?
On the Republican side, 946,207 voted, with Huckabee getting 34.1%, McCain 31.5%, and Romney 30.2%. On the Democratic side, 1,018,624 voted, with Obama getting 66.3%, Clinton 31.2%, and Edwards 1.7%.
On both sides, turnout was more than 50% above that of the party’s previous ‘active” primary. That’s notable, but there’s more.
In the 2000 Presidential election, 2,583,208 Georgians voted, 55.0% Republican to 43.2% Democrat. In the 2004 Presidential election, 3,298,798 Georgians voted, 58.0% Republican to 41.4% Democrat.
As you can see, Georgia has been a very red state for some time, nearly 60% so. But I think something has changed. I know it’s not an apples to apples comparison, but 1,964,831 Georgians voted yesterday in the primaries, and 52% of them voted Democratic, 48% Republican.
That’s a ten point swing in four years. In Georgia.
In addition, I can’t help but note that Obama not only got more than twice as many votes as Clinton did in Georgia, he also got more than twice as many as McCain, Huckabee, or Romney did. Add that to his victories in South Carolina and Alabama, and it would seem Obama is the perfect tactic to break the long term Republican electoral hold on the South.
Nationally, I think Josh Marshall sums it up well for the Democrats: “The only arguments for one side or the other being a winner here come down to airy and finally meaningless arguments about expectations. And the result tells a different tale. It’s about delegates. It’s dead even. You’ve got two well-funded candidates who’ve demonstrated an ability to power back from defeats. And neither is going anywhere.”
And in terms of earned delegates, it is a dead head: “The Obama camp projects topping Clinton by nine delegates, 845 to 836. NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party’s complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton.”
But then you have those pesky “Super Delegates.” There are hundreds of them, and therefore they could end up deciding the nomination. Right now, most of them are “committed” to Clinton, for vague and nebulous reasons. This could all change, of course. But it throws a real monkey wrench into the huge Democratic turnout this year across the country…
What if that turnout and enthusiasm ends up meaning nothing, with the convention thrown to the Old Pols in some legendary Smoky Room? I heard that in terms of total votes across the country, Obama took more than Clinton, by a slim margin. What if we end up with a convention where Obama has the slimmest of delegate leads, and the Super Delegates end up tipping the scale to Hillary?
In other words, there’s still ways the Democrats could blow this, despite what Mark Steyn says:
There was an explicit anti-Romney vote in the South. A mere month ago, in the wake of Iowa and New Hampshire, I received a ton of e-mails from southern readers saying these pansy northern states weren’t the “real” conservative heartland, and things would look different once the contest moved to the South. Well, the heartland spoke last night and about the only message it sent was that, no matter what the talk radio guys say, they’re not voting for a Mormon; no way, no how. The rationale for Romney continuing his campaign is that he’s the conservative alternative to McCain. The message from Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee is that he will never be accepted as such by the conservatives’ electoral base.
The real story of the night, when you look at their rallies and their turn-out numbers, is that the Dems have two strong candidates either of whom could lead a united party to victory. Forget the gaseous platitudes: in Dem terms, their choice on Super Duper Tuesday was deciding which candidate was Super Duper and which was merely Super. Over on the GOP side, it was a choice between Weak & Divisive or Weaker & Unacceptable. Doesn’t bode well for November.
Finally, we Americans are both terribly enthused about this election, and terribly stupid at times. In Florida, “Elections offices across the state are reporting hundreds of calls from voters wanting to know where they can vote today. The answer is that Florida already had its presidential primary — last week.” Meanwhile, in Virginia, “my local news station reports that a number of voters here in Virginia went to the polls today and irately got on the phone to someone to complain that their voting precinct was not yet open.” Virginia’s primary is next week.
Published 01:57PM, Wed, Feb 06 2008
Category: Local Politics Politics
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Peanut Gallery
“I ended up voting for Hillary”
You’re banned! BANNED I SAY! Your IP will never comment here again!
Oops, sorry, too much “partisan” in my coffee this morning, I guess.
“And after 1972, I don’t blame them”
I’ll take it from someone who was “more involved” than I was. At the age of 14, I recall thinking McGovern’s campaign didn’t look very “Presidential” to me.
And we’re probably getting ahead of ourselves worrying about Super Delegates and the like.
Here’s what I’m pondering … if Billary wins, who wants to be the third wheel (i.e., vice president) on that bike?
Here’s what I’m pondering … if Billary wins, who wants to be the third wheel (i.e., vice president) on that bike?
Easy: Bill Richardson.
This all seems very tight right now, and it is. But the odds of this perfect tie lasting for the rest of this month are close to zero. I don’t know how it will change, but I guarantee that it will. So I wouldn’t worry so much about the SuperDelegates.
It looks like the Clinton folks are planning to mail it in for a few primaries, hoping that Ohio and Texas will make up for a month of losses. They might want to ask Rudy’s people how that works out (My insider sources tell me they’re available).
I should know better than to believe the pundits and Conventional Wisdom by now, but it sounds like four weeks of “Obama wins another state,” while America gets to see more and more of him as a result.
This supposedly will lead up to the states where Clinton will make an actual effort to win, like Texas and Ohio. And later, Pennsylvania. But given the proportional split of delegates, it seems to me she’d have to deliver a Georgia-like knock-out blow (60-30 spread) to make up the difference and take a lead in the delegate race that no one can deny. Like, more than 150 delegates.
I’m sorry, I just don’t see that happening.
Everyone has been looking through the soda straw of Super Tuesday, and saying “it’s a dead heat.” To my mind, looking at the longer term picture, well, it never should have gotten to that.
Look back to last summer, and Clinton was leading by double digits in nearly every poll, and Obama was hardly a contender for second place back then. There was still the perception that the Clinton machine was too organized and well funded to be beaten.
Now seven or eight months later, it was Obama’s organization that has won multiple states. It is Obama’s fundraising that has driven the Clintons to dip into their personal till. The Clinton trend has been ever downward for over half a year. During that same time, Obama has trended ever upward.
That has not changed, and will continue to amplify. We see it in the money race already. What is it now, $8 million raised since Tuesday night?
The simple fact is that Obama never should have still been around to be so competitive on Super Tuesday, if the Clinton machine is the vaunted monolith all claim it to be. But the long terms trends are going to only be amplified by a solid month of Obama victories in states where the Clintons claim they aren’t really trying. One side continuing up, the other continuing down.
That’s my spin. For this week.
Hill got my vote as well, although I initially planned to vote for Obama.
I believe Obama is sincere about his desire for change and I think his message is inspiring. I just can’t shake the feeling that being sincere about change, and being an effective agent for change are two very different things. In this instance, I do think experience counts.
Another issue for me is that most of the mainstream press has been very kind to Obama thus far. Richard Cohen’s recent Washington Post editorial is the only exception I have seen and it didn’t seem to get wide play in the major news outlets. If Obama gets the Democratic nomination, I expect that media kindness will disappear as the same lovely group that brought us the Swift-Boating of John Kerry sinks its teeth into the anti-semitic/racist issues raised by Cohen. Hillary certainly has her share of negatives, but they are out there and she handles them pretty well. Only time will tell if Barack is capable of quashing the negative stuff that will come out in the general election campaign, and it worries me that he might not be up to the challenge.
My vote for Hillary was a hard call but my practical side said “Best chance”. No matter which of the two prevails, I will support them come November.
Gina! Glad you stopped by and commented.
I know this was a tough choice for many people who traditionally vote Democratic. But given the disastrous turns the Republican race has taken, amidst the lamenting about their “lost cause,” I’ve found it interesting to also read their views about the Democrats, like this from Peggy Noonan.
No consultant, no matter how opportunistic and hungry, will think it easy — or professionally desirable — to take [Obama] down in a low manner. If anything, they’ve learned from the Clintons in South Carolina what that gets you.
[...]
With Mr. Obama the campaign will be about issues. “He’ll raise your taxes.” He will, and I suspect Americans may vote for him anyway. But the race won’t go low.
Mrs. Clinton would be easier for Republicans. With her cavalcade of scandals, they’d be delighted to go at her. They’d get medals for it. Consultants would get rich on it.
The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it’s fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He’s not Bambi, he’s bulletproof.
The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented—“He’s too young, he’s never run anything, he’s not fully baked”—the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.
The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell.
Similarly, today Limbaugh moved on from McCain bashing long enough to say something like “we’ve got to keep her in it, to win it.”
It took a full rousting of the Republican base to gain narrow victories for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Many segments of that base feel zero urgency about making the effort to vote for McCain (some outright hate him) ... unless it’s to stop Hillary. And that will surely be the strategy of the GOP at large, to get out the vote; not to trumpet McCain, but to further demonize Clinton.
To me, it just portents at least four more years of partisan warfare. No thanks, I’m done. I think a lot of people are.
No consultant, no matter how opportunistic and hungry, will think it easy — or professionally desirable — to take [Obama] down in a low manner. If anything, they’ve learned from the Clintons in South Carolina what that gets you.
HA!
The right wing has a hate machine. It generates hate. It doesn’t do anything else. And it’s the only machine these cats have had since Lee Atwater built it back in the 80’s.
If Obama’s the guy, it might take them an extra week to get over the possible downside, but they will turn it on, with relish. And a significant portion of their base will be angry that it took them a whole extra week. (Suffering from the Blue Balls of Hate, I suppose.)
The question is whether Obama can turn it back. I think he can. But, either way, I’m not afraid enough of it anymore. So let ‘em bring it.
Shifting topics, I don’t share Gina’s concerns about Obama’s effectiveness. He’s put this grassroots effort together, which is better than anything like it that I’ve ever seen. And that’s a pretty good demonstration of effectiveness.
And lastly, I agree with Reid’s look at the trajectories of the two campaigns. But if Obama runs on grassroots volunteers and hope, the Clintons run on inexplicably coming back when they look dead. This’ll take a while to work out.
Then, there’s the math.
I was told there would be no math.
What I find funny is that the Republicans apparently view McCain as the “Scott Evil” of the Party (You’re semi-evil. You’re quasi-evil. You’re the Diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie! Not evil enough.), yet the old Democrat’s going to get the Republican nomination anyway. I think the hate machine is going to be too busy tearing down one of their own to worry about getting a few shots in at the next President.
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I was undecided up until a week ago, and I ended up voting for Hillary, even knowing she wouldn’t win. I like Obama better, he’s an incredibly inspiring orator, and I find Hillary a bit boring, if not conniving. But I ended up voting for her.
I went to a Bill Clinton rally, which, I’d say helped sway my opinion. I’ve always thought the guy was brilliant and I liked his speeches. At this rally, he was obviously on a short leash, nothing but praise for Obama. He spent probably two hours detailing (and I mean detailing) all of Hillary’s plans, which are pretty close to Obama’s from what I’ve picked up. After he was about 90 minutes into it, though, he said something like, “you know, this is all pretty talk. It sounds good, and God knows the country needs these changes, but it’s really all just pretty talk. In the end, you have to actually be able to work with Republicans to get anything done.”
And during the next few days I couldn’t shake a mental image I had of Obama as President coming forth with a huge group of plans that we desperately need in this country, and I saw his plans hitting the House and the Senate, and all the lobbyists, and his not being able to accomplish anything. If Bill Clinton put that seed of doubt in my mind, he’s better than I thought, but I think it’s always been there. Obama just hasn’t been around the block enough times, in my opinion. Even John Kennedy had 8 years in the Senate. No, we don’t like Washington insiders, but they still hold all the cards last time I looked.
Now, if Barack’s the nominee, I’ll hit the phones for him, because either candidate is incredibly more qualified than “More of the Same – F-bomb” McCain. We’ll see.
As far as the super delegates, I’m guessing they could switch from one candidate to the other. The Democratic Party just doesn’t trust us “reg’lar folk” to pick a nominee. And after 1972, I don’t blame them. I worked for McGovern back then and the whole politically correct leftist crowd was completely in charge, and Nixon was doubled over laughing on election day.